Wednesday, March 2, 2016

I actually liked this NYT editorial

The Republicans seem to be reeling, unable or unwilling to comprehend that a shady, bombastic liar is hardening the image of their party as a symbol of intolerance and division.Last summer, as Mr. Trump began to rise in the polls, party leaders took umbrage at the idea that they’d have to do something to keep the nomination from the likes of him. They stood aside and said, let voters decide. Now voters are deciding. They are leaning, in unbelievable numbers, toward a man whose quest for the presidency revolves around targeting religious and racial minorities and people with disabilities, who flirts with white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan, who ridicules and slanders those who disagree with him.His opponents, meanwhile, have rushed to adopt his anger-filled message. It’s small wonder that Republican leaders don’t seem to know quite what to say.“If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday, after months of such games. He sounded naïvely unaware of the darker elements within the Republican Party, present for decades, and now holding sway: “This party does not prey on people’s prejudices. We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the party of Lincoln.”The Republican Party is taking a big step toward becoming the party of Trump. Those who could challenge Mr. Trump — Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — are not only to the right of Mr. Trump on many issues, but are embracing the same game of exclusion, bigotry and character assassination.

aka, HERE IS A CANDIDATE WHO IS SAYING OUTRIGHT ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE HEAVILY, HEAVILY IMPLIED AND SAID UNDER YOUR BREATH FOR AT LEAST THE PAST 20-30 YEARS. REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

T said drily that all the Republicans who are horrified at Trump can feel happy voting for Hilary, since she's a sorta-moderate conservative owned by big business. Heh.

mothers and men

Hither rushed all the throng, streaming to the banks; mothers and men and bodies of high-souled heroes, their life now done, boys and unwedded girls, and sons placed on the pyre before their fathers’ eyes; thick as the leaves of the forest that at autumn’s first frost drop and fall, and thick as the birds that from the seething deep flock shoreward, when the chill of the year drives them overseas and sends them into sunny lands.